Describing and treating marginality in the Italian peripheries. Some advice from a UK case study

Even though they have been considered out of fashion for years in the mainstream public debate, research practices and urban policies, the peripheries of the big cities are still a problem in Italy. Due to the economic crises and its effects at the urban scale, especially in terms of urban poverty and social exclusion, the problems of these areas are clearly increased without appropriate tools. Moreover, the spatial effects of the spread of urban marginality have not been sufficiently included in urban planning practices, neither in the deprived areas of the inner city nor in the outskirts. Nonetheless, the claim for “policies for the peripheries” does not indicate the intention to develop a sector of specific policies, but the need to identify and integrate more effective actions and strategies for these fragile urban environments. In this framework, the paper presents and discusses, first, the deficiencies of the Italian debate and the consequent inadequacy of public urban policies, and second, some relevant approaches coming from the British context that could be useful for better intervene on our territories

Implicit processing of the eyes and mouth: Evidence from human electrophysiology

The current study examined the time course of implicit processing of distinct facial features and the associate event-related potential (ERP) components. To this end, we used a masked priming paradigm to investigate implicit processing of the eyes and mouth in upright and inverted faces, using a prime duration of 33 ms. Two types of prime-target pairs were used: 1. congruent (e.g., open eyes only in both prime and target or open mouth only in both prime and target); 2. incongruent (e.g., open mouth only in prime and open eyes only in target or open eyes only in prime and open mouth only in target). The identity of the faces changed between prime and target. Participants pressed a button when the target face had the eyes open and another button when the target face had the mouth open. The behavioral results showed faster RTs for the eyes in upright faces than the eyes in inverted faces, the mouth in upright and inverted faces. Moreover they also revealed a congruent priming effect for the mouth in upright faces. The ERP findings showed a face orientation effect across all ERP components studied (P1, N1, N170, P2, N2, P3) starting at about 80 ms, and a congruency/priming effect on late components (P2, N2, P3), starting at about 150 ms. Crucially, the results showed that the orientation effect was driven by the eye region (N170, P2) and that the congruency effect started earlier (P2) for the eyes than for the mouth (N2). These findings mark the time course of the processing of internal facial features and provide further evidence that the eyes are automatically processed and that they are very salient facial features that strongly affect the amplitude, latency, and distribution of neural responses to faces

Event-related potential correlates of implicit processing of own- and other-race faces in children

Human adults typically experience difficulties in recognizing and discriminating individual faces belonging to racial groups other than their own. The origin of this ‘‘other-race” effect is set in infancy, but the understanding of its developmental course is fragmented. We aimed to access the mechanisms of the other-race effect in childhood by unraveling the neural time course of ownand other-race face processing during a masked priming paradigm. White 6- and 7-year-old children (N = 19) categorized fully visible Asian (other-race) or White (own-race) target faces according to gender. Target faces were preceded by masked same-identity or different-identity prime faces, matching the target for race and gender. We showed an early priming effect on the N100 component, with larger amplitude to different-face pairs than to sameface pairs, and a later race effect on the N200 component, with larger amplitude to own-race face pairs than to other-race face pairs. Critically, race did not interact with priming at any processing stage (P100, N100, P200, N200, or P300). Our results suggest that race could have a temporally limited impact on face processing and that the implicit and unconscious identity processing of own- and other-race faces could be similar in 6- and 7-year-olds, depicting an immature other-race effect during childhood

Event-related potential correlates of implicit processing of own- and other-race faces in children

Human adults typically experience difficulties in recognizing and discriminating individual faces belonging to racial groups other than their own. The origin of this ‘‘other-race” effect is set in infancy, but the understanding of its developmental course is fragmented. We aimed to access the mechanisms of the other-race effect in childhood by unraveling the neural time course of ownand other-race face processing during a masked priming paradigm. White 6- and 7-year-old children (N = 19) categorized fully visible Asian (other-race) or White (own-race) target faces according to gender. Target faces were preceded by masked same-identity or different-identity prime faces, matching the target for race and gender. We showed an early priming effect on the N100 component, with larger amplitude to different-face pairs than to sameface pairs, and a later race effect on the N200 component, with larger amplitude to own-race face pairs than to other-race face pairs. Critically, race did not interact with priming at any processing stage (P100, N100, P200, N200, or P300). Our results suggest that race could have a temporally limited impact on face processing and that the implicit and unconscious identity processing of own- and other-race faces could be similar in 6- and 7-year-olds, depicting an immature other-race effect during childhood

Silencing of the Na+/H+ exchanger 1(NHE-1) prevents cardiac structural and functional remodeling induced by angiotensin II

Chronic activation of the renin angiotensin system (RAS) favors several cardiac diseases, among which myocardial hypertrophy occupies an outstanding place. In this context, the hyperactivity of the cardiac Na+/H+ (NHE-1) exchanger plays a key role. The pathologic remodeling of the myocardium constitutes an independent risk factor for morbidity and mortality with continuously increasing healthcare cost. Therefore, the development of better therapeutic strategies emerges as highly mandatory. Our goal was to prevent angiotensin II (ANGII)-induced cardiac hypertrophy by NHE-1 gene silencing in Wistar rats. The intramyocardial injection of a lentivirus coding a specific small interference RNA (l-shNHE1) significantly reduced NHE-1 expression exclusively in the heart (~ 50 %) and prevented cardiac remodeling in rats exposed to chronic infusion of ANG II (heart weigh/tibia length: 24,03 ± 0,7915 mg/mm vs 28,45 ± 0,9779 mg/mm and collagen volume fraction 2,526 ± 0,5003 vs 5,982 ± 1,043 in l-shNHE1 + ANGII and ANGII, respectively).Interestingly, this was accompanied by an improvement in cardiac function determined by echocardiography even though blood pressure remained elevated (Fractional shortening 0,5960 ± 0,4228 vs -0,9567± 0,06888 and blood pressure at the end of ANGII treatment 141,2 ± 6,117 mm Hg vs 134,1 ± 6,723 mm Hg ; in l-shNHE1 + ANGII and ANGII, respectively). ANGII infusion increased myocardial NADPH oxidase activity but the l-shNHE1 injection prevented oxidative stressas revealed by the normalization of lipid peroxidation (T-BARS 12,40 ± 2,887.vs 23,05 ± 1,537 in lshNHE1 + ANGII and ANGII, respectively). These results allow as to propose the partial silencing of the cardiac NHE-1 through lentiviralinjection as a promising tool in the prevention of ANGII-induced cardiac hypertrophy.Fil: Medina, Andrés Javier. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - La Plata. Centro de Investigaciones Cardiovasculares "Dr. Horacio Eugenio Cingolani". Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Ciencias Médicas. Centro de Investigaciones Cardiovasculares "Dr. Horacio Eugenio Cingolani"; ArgentinaFil: Pinilla, Oscar Andres. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - La Plata. Centro de Investigaciones Cardiovasculares "Dr. Horacio Eugenio Cingolani". Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Ciencias Médicas. Centro de Investigaciones Cardiovasculares "Dr. Horacio Eugenio Cingolani"; ArgentinaFil: Portiansky, Enrique Leo. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - La Plata; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Ciencias Veterinarias; ArgentinaFil: Caldiz, Claudia Irma. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - La Plata. Centro de Investigaciones Cardiovasculares "Dr. Horacio Eugenio Cingolani". Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Ciencias Médicas. Centro de Investigaciones Cardiovasculares "Dr. Horacio Eugenio Cingolani"; ArgentinaFil: Ennis, Irene Lucia. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - La Plata. Centro de Investigaciones Cardiovasculares "Dr. Horacio Eugenio Cingolani". Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Ciencias Médicas. Centro de Investigaciones Cardiovasculares "Dr. Horacio Eugenio Cingolani"; Argentin

Genetic variability of arrhenotokous and thelytokous Venturiacanescens (Hymenoptera)

The ichneumonid wasp Venturia canescens (Hymenoptera) has been studied extensively for foraging behaviour and population dynamics of sexually (arrhenotokous) and parthenogenetically (thelytokous) reproducing individuals. Here we report the development of a set of microsatellite markers for V.canescens and use them to show that arrhenotokous individuals have more genetic variability than thelytokous ones, which are even homozygous for all tested loci. Crosses between arrhenotokous individuals suggested one marker, Vcan071, to be linked with the Complementary Sex Determiner (CSD) locus and one, Vcan109, with the Virus Like Protein (vlp-p40) locus. The genome size of V. canescens was estimated to be 274–279 Mb. We discuss how both reproductive modes can give rise to the observed genetic variability and how the new markers can be used for future genetic studies of V. canescens

Understanding nucleation and oiling out through phase-field modelling

Abstract Antisolvent crystallisation is a process widely applied within the pharmaceutical industry, reliant on the difference in solubility of a solute in two miscible liquids—the solvent and the antisolvent—to create supersaturation [1]. Since local supersaturation values affect the properties of the final product [2], mixing plays a major role in this process. However, mass transfer in this context is not well understood, leading to undesired outcomes such as unwanted crystal phases or oiling out. Mixing in the microscale is commonly described through Fick’s second law. However, this model considers composition gradients as the driving force for mass transfer, failing to explain non-idealities such as uphill diffusion [3]. Additionally, it assumes ideal behaviour, while the unwanted phenomena mentioned occur when non-idealities lead the system to unexpected regions of the phase diagram. In this work, experimental micromixing studies of mixtures formed by water, ethanol and glycine are conducted, using Raman microscopy to generate composition maps of these binary and ternary systems. The maps are then used to compare the accuracy in predicting the mixing behaviour of two models: Fickian diffusion and a combination of the Cahn-Hilliard phase-field model with Maxwell-Stefan diffusion (CaHiMaS). The latter considers the minimization of the system’s free energy as the mass transfer driving force, can model non-ideal solutions and considers the interfacial free energy. Thus, it can potentially model the oiling-out phenomenon. Therefore, the hypothesis tested is that the CaHiMaS model and Fick’s law will adjust similarly to binary systems, while the former will allow to model the non-idealities and phase transformations in the ternary system. This framework can greatly enhance our understanding of diffusive mixing processes and liquid-liquid separation phenomena in any chemical process involving diffusion of non-ideal solutions. Ultimately, this untapped knowledge will lead to safer and more robust manufacturing of chemical and pharmaceutical products. References [1] Lewis, A., Seckler, M., Kramer, H., van Rosmalen, G., Industrial Crystallization: Fundamentals and Applications. Cambridge University Press, 2015. [2] Pirkle, C., et al. "Computational fluid dynamics modeling of mixing effects for crystallization in coaxial nozzles", Chem. Eng. Process., 97 (2015): 213-232. [3] Krishna, R. "Uphill diffusion in multicomponent mixtures", Chem. Soc. Rev., 44 (2015): 2812-2836. [4] Cahn, J. W. and Hilliard, J. E. "Free Energy of a Nonuniform System. I. Interfacial Free Energy", J. Chem. Phys., 28.2 (1928): 258-267

Effectiveness of digital-based interventions for children with mathematical learning difficulties : A meta-analysis

Abstract The purpose of this work was to meta-analyze empirical evidence about the effectiveness of digital-based interventions for students with mathematical learning difficulties. Furthermore, we investigated whether the school level of the participants and the software instructional approach were decisive modulated factors. A systematic search of randomized controlled studies published between 2003 and 2019 was conducted. A total of 15 studies with 1073 participants met the study selection criterion. A random effects meta-analysis indicated that digital-based interventions generally improved mathematical performance (mean ES = 0.55), though there was a significant heterogeneity across studies. There was no evidence that videogames offer additional advantages with respect to digital-based drilling and tutoring approaches. Moreover, effect size was not moderated when interventions were delivered in primary school or in preschool

Understanding the effect of diffusive mixing in antisolvent crystallisation

Antisolvent crystallisation is a process widely applied within the pharmaceutical industry. It relies on the difference in solubility of a solute in two miscible liquids—the solvent and the antisolvent—to create the supersaturation required for crystallisation to occur [1]. The mixing process has a significant impact on the characteristics of the final product [2], since properties such as the crystal size distribution and the final crystal polymorph obtained are influenced by local supersaturation values. However, mass transfer in antisolvent crystallisation is not well understood, leading to the occurrence of unexpected and undesired phenomena such as oiling out (i.e. liquid/liquid phase split) or the formation of unwanted crystal phases. Traditionally, the mixing of solute, solvent and antisolvent at the microscale has been described through Fick’s law of diffusion. However, this model considers the driving force for mass transfer to be the gradient in concentration of the components, instead of the more physically accurate gradient in chemical potential. Therefore, it fails to explain non-idealities observed for certain systems including uphill diffusion [3], which is the diffusion of a component against its concentration gradient. The path of the system through the solubility phase diagram is dictated by mass transfer, and unwanted phenomena may occur when non-idealities lead the system to unexpected regions in this phase diagram. The development of a model that accurately predicts and describes these events is essential for their understanding and prevention. In this work, we compare the performance of Fick’s law against the Maxwell-Stefan equations in a system formed by water, ethanol, and glycine, in which the appearance of these phenomena has been reported. Since the Maxwell-Stefan framework considers the chemical potential as the driving force for diffusion, a better description of the mixing process is expected, including the prediction of nonidealities, as this model is more robust from a thermodynamical perspective. The simulation results are compared to experimental diffusion measurements obtained through Raman spectroscopy, with the expectation that the Maxwell-Stefan equations will adjust better to the experimental results. This framework has the potential to greatly enhance our understanding of diffusive mixing processes not only in antisolvent crystallisation, but also in any other chemical process in which diffusion of nonideal solutions takes place. Ultimately, this will lead to safer, more robust manufacturing of chemical and pharmaceutical products